Compton : No-Smoking Law Snuffed

As City Council members Jane D. Robbins and Robert L. Adams boldly puffed on cigarettes, a no-smoking ordinance proposed by Mayor Walter R. Tucker and styled after one recently passed in the City of Beverly Hills was snuffed this week without being put to a vote.

The smoking ban would have penalized anyone who lighted a pipe, cigar or cigarette in a retail store, grocery or restaurant as well as any other enclosed public place, including the council chambers.

Robbins said such a law would “create more problems” than it would solve. And Councilman Floyd A. James said he opposed any restriction being placed on the city’s private businesses. James, a nonsmoker, said he is more concerned about general air pollution within the county.

Tucker said he decided to push for the ban after attending a conference on the hazards of smoking. “Of course, if you’ve got the votes (to defeat the ordinance) you can smoke all over the place,” Tucker said with a smile. But he predicted that “Almost every city in the future is going to address this.” In reply to James, Tucker said more people get cancer from smoking than from any other type of air pollution.

However, the other council members, with colleague Maxcy D. Filer absent, found the smoking ban so distasteful that none of them would even make a motion to have the measure put to a vote. So Tucker’s proposal died in silence.